


Two Years

by thelilging



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Out of Character, Single Parent Clarke, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4097806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilging/pseuds/thelilging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: you asked me to the store with you and your child, and now my distant relative we met thinks I'm married with a baby</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Years

**Author's Note:**

> I should be writing The President's Wife. Instead, I'm doing this :)

He's doing it again. The bawling, the sniffling, the constant whining cries. And me? I'm a terrible mother. I'm exhausted from my forty-plus hour week of school and work, the babysitter just told me that she's leaving _next week_ because she got a job at some tacky Hooters rip-off restaurant, and I just really really _really_ need to sleep for three hours. (Preferably in a row, but I'll take what I can get.)

“Liam,” I sigh, an attempted coo turned into a plead, “baby, just let Mama buckle you into your car seat. _Please_.”

At eight months old, Liam is quite possibly the most active little person I have ever had the joy of encountering. And I, at twenty-one years old, am his beyond tired single mom.

I wrestle (okay, that verb sounds a lot more aggressive than our struggle actually was) Liam into his seat, attempting in vain to ignore the high-pitched wailing coming from my son's mouth.

“Clarke?”

I know that voice. _Fuck._ I spin around, already blushing.

And there he is. Bellamy Blake, the absolutely gorgeous older guy who lives in the apartment above mine, all 6'2” of him in all of his delicious, slightly rumpled glory. A knit cap covers the majority of his dark curls (unfortunately), and Bellamy's dark eyes are slightly magnified by the trendy glasses that rest low on the bridge of his nose. He looks exhausted, maybe even a little hungover. But he's still wearing khakis.

Christ. _The khakis._ I love the khakis.

I'd really really _really_ like to jump his bones. In case you haven't noticed.

What can I say? It's been a while since Mama got some. If you catch my drift.

“Rough morning?” Bellamy asks. He stops a couple feet away, peering around me to get a glimpse of Liam, who continues wailing away in the backseat of my car.

“You have no idea,” I mutter darkly.

Bellamy stretches his arm out to me, offering me his coffee mug. “You look like you could use it a bit more than me.”

God fucking bless. I'm only slightly ashamed at how little of a fight I put up. The coffee's black, not normally how I take it, but it's a goddamn blessing.

“Where are you two headed?” he asks.

Is Bellamy Blake seriously leaning against my car? Making conversation? Asking me about my Saturday afternoon plans? I mean, we've talked before, but usually just briefly in the poorly-lit hallways and the creaking elevator. I struggle to fight the temptation to pinch myself.

“Grocery shopping,” I admit.

“No kidding?” Bellamy grins at me, and I regard him warily. (Overly enthusiastic people have been grating on my nerves lately. Sorry. Lack of sleep makes me bitchy, and I'm the first to admit it.) “Me too! Do you, uh, want to share a ride?” He glances at Liam again, who is still struggling against the belts that strap him into his car seat. “I can try my hand with the kiddo.”

I try not to scoff. I really do. But people don't seem to understand what I mean about Liam being inconsolable until they actually try their hand at it. Their smugness, the confidence that they are the baby whisperer who will change my life forever, never fails to fade pretty quickly. My kid's crazy. I've accepted it by now.

Bellamy nudges me aside gently and squeezes into the car door, bending over to get on Liam's level. “Hey, dude,” he says softly. It's not a full-blown coo, thank God, because something about baby voices makes Liam completely lose his shit. “Hey, buddy. Shh, shh. Mama and I are gonna take you grocery shopping, do you think you can quiet down a little? Your mama looks pretty wiped out.”

And then, get this, Liam stops wailing. The tears just stop. It's like a light switch. He cocks his head (Like a dog. I swear to God, I'm raising a dog.) and frowns up at Bellamy, as though he's actually considering what my neighbor is telling him. Liam waves a pudgy little hand in the air, nearly smacking Bellamy in the cheek, and then latches onto Bellamy's pointer finger.

Bellamy looks up at me, grinning proudly. “I hate to say I told you so, but...”

I gape down at him. I can't help it. Once Liam gets going, no one can tame the monster. “That's it,” I choke out. “I'm never letting you leave this car.”

Bellamy chuckles softly and climbs into the car next to Liam, never letting go of my little boy's hand. “Do you mind if I sit back here with him?”

“By all means,” I mutter. “Please do.”

And that is how I find myself driving down Main Street, checking the rear view mirror at a frequency that probably isn't safe. Bellamy sits there, talking quietly to my son, who has decided that he likes Bellamy enough to stick the man's finger directly in his mouth. Every so often we make eye contact in the mirror, and my stomach does a little flip every damn time.

I park the car and Bellamy hops out, scooping Liam out of his car seat easily. He props my little guy on his hip as we walk into the grocery store. I want to cry with relief; Liam's still manageable, but I'm not all that big or strong. Pretty soon I won't be able to carry him everywhere.

Bellamy is surprisingly talkative. We've seen each other enough around the apartment building to be able to share a car without me having to worry about the possibility of Bellamy being a serial killer, but we've never, like, hung out before. (What a dream that would be...)

Bellamy squeezes Liam into the shopping cart and buckles him in securely, making goofy faces at him the entire time. “...I just turned twenty-six,” he's saying with a touch of self-deprecating humor, “and I'm starting to realize that maybe majoring in history wasn't one of my better decisions.”

“What do you do right now?” I ask.

Bellamy tosses more Arthur mac 'n' cheese into our cart than is truly necessary, shrugging with an unashamed grin when he sees my raised eyebrows. “I do a little bit of everything,” he admits with a shrug. “I bartend. I do some museum security. I like freelancing. Sometimes my sister has me come in to talk to her fourth graders about whatever they're covering in history.” Liam sniffles, and Bellamy immediately is by my side, grinning down at the little boy and steering the cart out of my capable hands. When I start protest, Bellamy just turns on the charm. “What? You get him all the time, give me a turn.”

I sigh. (Not that I'm really that mad about it. Bellamy looks even hotter when he's babying Liam, and who would I be to discourage that? It'd be doing a disservice to females everywhere.)

“So,” Bellamy says, “tell me about yourself, Clarke Griffin.”

I raise my eyebrows. “What do you want to know, Bellamy Blake?”

“Are you still in school?”

“I'm just finishing my senior year of college,” I tell him as I dig around for the best apples in the bin. “I'm going to be an elementary school art teacher. Ideally. Right now I work at that little pottery place over on 7th? Above the Chinese place? I teach art lessons of all kinds there and waitress on the side. Oh, shi—oot!” (I made a promise to myself not to swear in front of Liam, and so far it's going really well. Well, it's going okay. Yesterday some fucker cut me off on the freeway and I swore like a sailor, but Liam just waved his little fists and backed me up.) “I forgot to grab a pineapple, let me run back to that aisle. I'll be right back.”

I dash off, leaving Bellamy looking slightly lost behind me. Okay, maybe it isn't the smartest thing to leave Liam with some guy that I don't know all that well, but something about Bellamy just seems trustworthy. I think it's the way he looks at Liam. It's like... well, almost as if Bellamy is just as in awe of Liam as I am. When I've had enough sleep and Liam isn't in full freak-out mode, that is.

Where are the fucking pineapples? I hunt around the fruit aisle for a little while, only growing more and more annoyed, until I finally find them tucked away in a random corner, hidden by a group of old ladies who have practically camped out in the middle of the grocery store as they gossip about someone's granddaughter, who may or may not be pregnant at eighteen. Get this, _out of wedlock._ Gasp!I'm only slightly offended at the horror I hear in their voices.

I grab a pineapple and make my way back through the grocery store, glancing up and down the aisles for Bellamy and Liam. When I finally do see them, with what appears to be the store's entire supply of Ramen in our cart, Bellamy is in the middle of what appears to be a very serious conversation with a dinosaur. Whoops, sorry, a sweet little old lady. (I'm not fond of old people, in case you haven't noticed.)

“...you really should come over more often,” she's telling Bellamy earnestly. “This little man is so adorable! He's crawling okay? And makes use of his vocals?”

Bellamy sighs and messes with his hat. “Uh, yeah, trust me. He doesn't shy away from using his voice.”

I stop next to him, depositing elusive pineapple in our cart. Is Bellamy... sweating?

“Oh!” the old lady gasps when she sees me. An almost predatory smile spreads across her wrinkled cheeks. “Hello, I'm Bellamy's Great-Aunt Louise.”

I start to hold out my hand for her to shake (because I'm a polite motherfucker), but this crazy woman reaches out and _hugs_ me. I'm enveloped by a not-so-faint scent of lavender and baby powder. Basically, she smells like an old lady.

“Uh... Hi?” I stammer.

Liam starts to let out a wail, and I turn to face him, relieved to have an excuse to escape Great-Aunt Louise. But Bellamy, the sneaky asshole, beats me to it. He grins at me apologetically as he scoops Liam out of the shopping cart and bounces him. My traitorous son falls silent almost immediately.

“What's your name, honey?” Great-Aunt Louise simpers.

“Clarke Griffin.”

Great-Aunt Louise's penciled-in eyebrows shoot up underneath her white curls. “ _Griffin_?” she asks, giving Bellamy a sharp look.

Hahahaha. What the hell.

“Yeah,” Bellamy says hastily. “Well, it was nice to see you. Good to catch up and all.”

He starts to back away, and I follow a bit too quickly to be polite. But dammit, this lady is weird.

“Give me a call, Bellamy!” Great-Aunt Louise calls after us. “I'd like to have you all over for dinner!”

Bellamy winces and doesn't say anything. We turn the corner, heading down the ice cream aisle.

“So...” I say finally. “She seems, uh, nice. Very, y'know, hospitable. Welcoming.”

Bellamy lets out a little groan and carefully straps Liam back into the shopping cart. “She thinks Liam is _ours_.”

It takes me a couple seconds to really process what Bellamy said. With each passing second, Bellamy looks more and more pained.

I can't help it. I snort. “Wait,” I giggle, “your Great-Aunt Louise now thinks that you have a _baby_? With _me_? She thinks that we're... an _item_?”

“Well you don't have to make it sound that horrifying,” Bellamy says crossly.

“That's why she was so freaked when I said my last name is Griffin,” I cackle.

Bellamy rolls his eyes. The corners of his mouth twitch. “Okay,” he admits, “that was kind of funny.”

“Do you really talk to your family that little?” I ask. “Like, it's not that unrealistic for you to just show up with a baby and a girlfriend in tow?”

Bellamy shrugs uncomfortably, suddenly fascinated by the different kinds of ice cream the grocery store has to offer. “My sister and I haven't always had the smoothest relationship with that side of the family.”

I get it. I really do. I mean, who am I to talk? My son doesn't have a relationship with his asshole of a father (that's a story for a different day), and my mother cut off all contact with me when I decided to keep him. I can understand family issues.

“I mean,” I say, trying to switch the conversation in a different direction, “Great-Aunt Louise seems like she would be a good cook. I can't cook for shit, so maybe we should take her up on her offer sometime.”

“Good one.”

We pull up to the checkout, and I start loading our groceries up so that the gawky teenage girl, complete with a crooked red visor and matching stained apron, can scan us out. Liam, as usual, goes straight for the candy. I don't know how he even knows what candy is, since I'm pretty sure that I've never given him any, but he never fails to start whining and reaching when we pass the Butterfingers and Snickers. (Is this a sign that I'm going to mother a morbidly obese child in a couple years? Is Type II diabetes in our not-so-distant future? Fuck. I should Google this.)

Bellamy starts to reach for the candy, grinning down at and talking to Liam, but I reach out and grab his wrist before he can pick up a bag of Skittles. (Seriously. Who tries to give Skittles to an eight-month-old?)

“He can't have candy.”

“Why?” Bellamy whines. I swear to God, they have the exact same whining tone. It's freaky.

“Because he's eight-months-old!”

Bellamy sighs and looks between me and Liam. “Sorry, bud,” he says, shaking his head sorrowfully. “Mama's got a good point on this one.”

The cashier giggles and pushes her glasses up. “You two have the cutest family! How long have you been married?”

Shit. This is about to get real awkward, real fast. “We're n-”

“Two years.”

I look at Bellamy and raise my eyebrows. He raises his back.

“That's adorable!” the cashier gushes. She makes a face at Liam, who looks at her like she's officially lost her mind. The girl just giggles and hands the receipt to Bellamy. “Thanks! Come again!”

Bellamy pushes the cart out into the parking lot, avoiding looking at me. Is he... blushing?

“Two years, huh?”

“Shut up,” he groans. “I thought it would be easier than explaining that we live in the same apartment building and we're not dating but I really like your kid and you're somewhat tolerable and we might go out on a date on Friday if you want to?”

Well, shit.

 

*

 

Three years later, we come back to the same grocery store. A different cashier checks us out, but she has the same gawky, pimpled look of a girl who's still in the midst of her awkward years. Liam still begs for candy, but this time I'm too busy attempting to hush Liam's little sister to convince Bellamy to put the Twix back on the shelf. This time, when the cashier asks how long we've been married, Bellamy gives her the same answer. And this time, it's the truth.

 


End file.
